Chapter 8: Middle Adulthood

The Gradual Change in the Body’s Capabilities

People in middle adulthood experience gradual changes in physical characteristics and appearance. The acuity of the senses, particularly vision and hearing, and speed of reaction declines slightly during middle age.

Physical Transitions in Middle Adulthood

• Gradual psychological and emotional changes in body’s capabilities
• Depends in part on self-concept and lifestyle

Height, Weight, and Strength: Benchmarks of Change

• After age 55, bones become less dense
• Women are more prone to declining height due to osteoporosis
• Both men and women continue to gain weight in middle adulthood

Vision

Starting at age 40, visual acuity (ability to discern fine spatial detail) declines

• Changing eye's lenses in shape and elasticity results in loss of near vision, called presbyopia
• Declining depth perception and night vision

Glaucoma: the nerve connecting the eye to the brain is damaged, usually due to high eye pressure. The most common type, open-angle glaucoma, often has no symptoms other than slow vision loss.

• Pressure in eye fluid increases
• About 1 - 2% over 40 years are afflicted

Hearing

Presbycusis: hearing Loss caused by the natural aging of the auditory system. It occurs gradually and initially affects the ability to hear higher pitched (higher frequency) sounds.

• About 12% of people between 45 and 65 suffer from presbycusis
• Men more prone to hearing loss
• Sound localization is diminished

Reaction Time

Reaction Time

• Decreases slightly in middle adulthood
• Improves or compensated for by being more careful and practicing the skill
• Can be slowed by exercise

The Benefits of Exercise

• Weight gain ("middle age spread") can be controlled through regular exercise and a healthy diet.

Sexuality in Middle Adulthood

Frequency of sexual intercourse decreases with age

• Sexual activities remain a vital part of most middle-aged adults’ lives
• Adults have more freedom
• Women no longer need to practice birth control

Sexuality in Middle Adulthood

Sexuality in middle adulthood changes slightly, but middle-aged couples, freed from concerns about children, can enjoy a new level of intimacy and enjoyment.

Sexual Intercourse

• Men typically need more time to get an erection. Volume of fluid in ejaculation declines. Production of testosterone also declines.
• In women, walls of the vagina become less elastic and thinner. Vagina shrinks, potentially making intercourse painful.

Menopause

• Starting about age 45, transition from being able to bear children to being unable to do so
• Lasting about 15 to 20 years

Hormone Therapy

Estrogen and progesterone used to alleviate worst symptoms of menopausal

• Reduces a variety of problems
• May change ratio of “good” cholesterol to “bad” cholesterol
• Decreases the thinning of the bones related to osteoporosis
• Associated with reduced risks of stroke and colon cancer
• May improve memory and cognitive performance
• May lead to greater sex drive

Women’s Health Initiative: determined long-term risks of HT outweighed the benefits. Combination of estrogen and progesterone linked to higher risk for breast cancer, stroke, pulmonary embolism, and heart disease.

• Increased risk of stroke and pulmonary embolism later found to be associated with estrogen-alone therapy.

Menopause

The Psychological Consequences of Menopause

• Early research: menopause linked directly to depression, anxiety, crying spells, lack of concentration, and irritability.
• Current research: normal part of aging that does not, by itself, produce psychological symptoms. Effects influenced by personal and cultural expectations of menopause.

Men

Male changes during middle age

• Period of physical and psychological change relating to male reproductive system that occurs during late middle age.
• Enlargement of the prostate gland
• Problems with urination, including difficulty starting to urinate and frequent need to urinate during night

Men still produce sperm and can father children through middle age.

Health

Did you know?

• Vast majority of people in middle age face no chronic health difficulties and have fewer accidents and infections.

Worries of Adulthood

Health

Chronic Diseases in Middle Adulthood

• Arthritis typically begins after age 40
• Hypertension (high blood pressure) is one of the most frequent chronic disorders found in middle age
• Diabetes is most likely to occur in people between the ages of 50 and 60

Stress in Middle Adulthood

• Stress continues to have a significant impact on health in middle age
• According to psychoneuroimmunologists, who study the relationship between the brain, the immune system, and psychological factors, stress produces consequences, leads to unhealthy behaviors.

Consequences of Stress in Middle Adulthood

Health & Cultural Dimensions

Ethnic Differences

• African Americans’ death rate is twice the rate for Caucasians
• Lower family’s income related to higher likelihood of disabling illness, more dangerous occupations, inferior health coverage

Gender Differences

• Women’s overall mortality rate is lower than men’s

Health & Gender

Gender Differences

• During middle age, women experience more non-life threatening illnesses than men but men experience more serious illnesses
• Women smoke less; drink less alcohol; have less dangerous jobs
• Medical research has typically studied diseases of men with all male samples; the medical community is only now beginning to study women's health issues

Coronary Heart Disease: more men die in middle age of diseases of the heart and circulatory system than any other cause.

• Both genetic and experiential characteristics are involved
• Heart disease runs in families
• Men are more likely to suffer than women, and risks increase with age

Health & Personality

Type A Personality

• Characteristics: competitiveness, impatience, and a tendency toward frustration and hostility, are more susceptible to heart disease.
• Also tend to engage in polyphasic activities, or doing a number of things at once.
• Evidence is only correlational so cannot say Type A behavior causes heart disease.

Does a Type A personality deal with stress differently from a Type B personality?

• Type B: described as easy-going, relaxed, and highly flexible; non-competitiveness, patience, lack of aggression
• Type B have less than half the risk of coronary disease than Type A

Cancer

Cancer is associated with genetic and environmental risks

• Poor nutrition, smoking, alcohol use, exposure to sunlight, exposure to radiation, and particular occupational hazards
• Early treatment is related to higher survival rate

Treatment takes a variety of forms

• Radiation therapy involves the use of radiation to destroy a tumor
• Chemotherapy involves the controlled ingestion of toxic substances meant to poison the tumor
• Surgery may be used to remove the tumor
• Early diagnosis is crucial

Breast Cancer

• Mammography, a weak X-ray, is used to detect breast cancer
• Death rate lower for those who had a "fighting spirit" or those who denied they had the disease
• A positive psychological outlook may boost the body's immune system

Does Intelligence Decline in Adulthood?

Cross-sectional studies clearly showed that older subjects scored less well than younger subjects on traditional IQ tests

• Intelligence peaks at 18, stays steady until mid-20s, and declines till end of life

Longitudinal studies revealed different developmental patterns in intelligence

• Stable and even increasing IQ scores until mid-30s, and some to mid-50s, then declines

Older research: cross sectional studies, cohort effect

Newer research: longitudinal studies, practice effect and participant attrition

Intelligence Testing Effects

Practice effect

Attrition

Physical performance portion

• Timed
• Reaction time slows with age
• Results may be due to physical changes not cognitive changes

Kinds of Intelligence

• Fluid intelligence: ability to deal with new problems and situations.
• Crystallized intelligence: store of information, skills, and strategies that people have acquired through education and prior experiences, and through their previous use of fluid intelligence.

Intelligence Testing Effects

Changes in Crystallized and Fluid Intelligence

• Although crystallized intelligence increases with age, fluid intelligence begins to decline in middle age (Schaie, 1985).
• What are the implications for general competence in middle adulthood?

What Is the Source of Competence During Middle Adulthood?

Salthouse suggests four reasons this discrepancy exists.

• Typical measures of cognitive skills tap a different type of cognition than what is required to be successful in particular occupations.
• Measures of practical intelligence rather than traditional IQ tests to assess intelligence may yield little discrepancy.
• People can be quite successful professionally and still be on the decline in certain kinds of cognitive abilities.
• Older people may be successful because they have developed specific kinds of expertise and particular competencies.

Selective Optimization with Compensation

Older, successful people may have developed expertise in their particular occupational area.

Expertise refers to the acquisition of skill or knowledge in a particular area, develops as people devote attention and practice

• Expert: Relies on experience and intuition, processes information automatically, uses different neural pathways to solve problems
• Novice: Strictly follows formal rules and procedures, uses better strategies and better problem-solving

Multitasking

What is multitasking doing to our brains?

• Multitaskers may be oversensitive to incoming information.
• People with considerable experience playing video games actually become better at reacting to stimuli, singling out important information, and switching between tasks.
• Middle-aged adults who have previous Internet searching experience show higher levels of brain activation while engaging in that task compared to merely reading pages of text.

Memory

Memory may appear to decline in middle age, but, in fact, long-term memory deficits are probably due to ineffective strategies of storage and retrieval.

According to research, memory changes in adulthood

• Most people show only minimal losses
• Many exhibit no memory loss in middle adulthood

People categorize and interpret new information according to the schemes they have developed about how the world is organized and operates.

Memory

Memory is viewed in terms of three sequential components

• Sensory memory
• Short-term memory holds information for 15 to 25 seconds
• Long-term memory

Mnemonics help people organize material in ways that improve recall. These formal strategies include getting organized, visualizing, rehearsing, paying attention, and using the encoding specificity phenomenon.

Effective strategies for remembering -

• Mnemonics: get organized, pay attention, use encoding specificity phenomenon, visualize, rehearse

Personality Development

Two Perspectives on Adult Personality Development

Normative-Crisis vs. Life Events

• Normative crisis model: views personality development in terms of fairly universal stages, tied to a sequence of age-related crises.
• Life events model: suggests that particular events, rather than age per se, determine how personality develops.

Personality Development

Erikson’s Stage of Generativity vs. Stagnation

People consider their contributions to family, community, work, and society.

• Generativity: looking beyond oneself to continuation of one's life through others.
• Stagnation: focusing on the triviality of their life.

Erikson

• Critics argue that normative-crisis models are outdated
• Model came from time when gender roles were more rigid

Personality Development

Building on Erikson’s Views

Vaillant - keeping meaning versus rigidity

• Adults seek to extract meaning from their lives by accepting strengths and weaknesses of others.
• Those who are rigid become increasingly isolated from others.

Personality Development

Building on Erikson’s Views

Gould - adults pass through series of seven age-related stages.

• People in late 30s and early 40s begin to feel sense of urgency in attaining life’s goals.
• Descriptions not research supported.

Gould’s Transformations in Adult Development

Personality Development

Building on Erikson’s Views

Levinson - Seasons of Life Theory

• Most people are susceptible to fairly profound midlife crisis.
• Late 30s, early 40s, between 40 and 45

Midlife Crisis: stage of uncertainty and indecision brought about by realization that life is finite.

• Gender differences
• Despite widespread acceptance, evidence for midlife crisis does not exist.
• For majority of people, transition is smooth and rewarding; many middle-aged people find their careers have blossomed, and report feeling younger than they actually are.

Culture

Middle age: in some cultures it doesn’t exist.

Model of aging of Oriyan women

• High caste Hindu women.
• Life course based on nature of one’s social responsibility, family management issues, and moral sense at given time; not on basis of chronological age.
• Domestic work is highly respected and valued.

Stability vs. Change in Personality

Does personality change or remain stable over the course of development?

• Erikson & Levinson: substantial change.
• Costa & McCrae: stability in traits across development. Basic personality traits such as neuroticism, extroversion, and openness are stable and consistent throughout adulthood (1989).

Stability vs. Change in Personality

Big Five traits are relatively stable past age 30 with some variations in specific traits

• Neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience decline somewhat from early adulthood through middle adulthood.
• Agreeableness and conscientiousness increase to a degree.
• Findings are consistent across cultures.

Happiness

Sense of subjective well-being or general happiness remains stable over life span.

• Most people have a general “set point” for happiness.
• Regardless of where they stand economically, residents of countries across the world have similar levels of happiness.

Relationships: Family in Middle Age

Middle Age Marriages

• Most frequent pattern of marital satisfaction is U-shaped (Rollins & Cannon, 1974).
• Marital satisfaction begins to decline after marriage and falls to its lowest point following the birth of children.
• Marital satisfaction begins to grow after children leave adolescence and reaches its highest point when kids leave home.

Relationships: Family in Middle Age

What do newer findings suggest?

• Unhappy marriages tend to terminate, so earlier cross-sectional methods not representative.
• Long-married couples were older and were married during times when marriage was more highly valued.
• Different couples have different levels of marital satisfaction even at outset.

High marriage satisfaction

• State that their spouse is their "best friend“
• View marriage as a long-term commitment
• Believe their spouse has grown more interesting over the years
• Feel their sex lives (although frequency may decline) are satisfying

Relationships: Family in Middle Age

Proven Coping Mechanisms in Successful Marriages

• Holding realistic expectations
• Focusing on the positive
• Compromising
• Avoiding suffering in silence

Why Marriages Unravel

• People spend less time together in middle adulthood
• More concern over personal happiness
• Divorce is more socially acceptable
• Women feel less dependent on husbands
• Romantic, passionate feelings may fade over time
• Infidelity

Relationships: Family in Middle Age

Rising Divorces in Middle Adulthood

• Both the divorce rate and the number of people that experience divorce have risen significantly, and the increases are projected to continue in the future (Brown & Lin, 2012).

Relationships: Family in Middle Age

Marriage gradient pushes men to marry younger women

• Older women are victims of the harsh societal standards regarding physical attractiveness.
• A major reason many remarry is that being divorced carries a stigma.

Remarriage

• Around three-quarters of people who divorce remarry again, usually within 2 to 5 years.
• Older couples are more mature and realistic
• Roles are more flexible
• Couple looks at marriage less romantically and is more cautious
• Divorce rate is higher for second marriages
• More stress, especially with blended families
• Once divorce is experienced, it is easier to walk away a second time

Family in Middle Age

Empty Nest Syndrome: when parents experience feelings of unhappiness, worry, loneliness, and depression resulting from their children's departure from home.

• More myth than reality
• When children leave home: parents have more time alone or to work, and fewer domestic duties and distractions.

Boomerang Children: young adults who come back to live in the homes of their middle-aged parents.

• Men are more likely to do it than women
• Parents tend to give sons more freedom than daughters
• Unable to find a job
• Difficulty making ends meet
• About one-third of young adults 25 to 34 live with parents; higher in some European countries

Boomerang Children

The percentage of those saying that living with their parents at

this stage of life has been bad, good, or no different in terms

of their relationship (Pew Research Center, 2012).

Caring for Family

Sandwich Generation: fulfill needs of both their children and their aging parents.

• Couples are marrying and having children later
• Parents are living longer

Caring for Aging Parents

• Can be psychologically tricky, significant degree of role reversal
• Range of care varies; financial, managing household, providing direct care
• Influenced by cultural norms and expectations

Being a Grandparent

Types

• Involved
• Companionate
• Remote

Grandmothers

• Marked gender differences in ways people enjoy grandparenthood
• Grandmothers are more interested and experience greater satisfaction than grandfathers
• African American grandparents are more apt to be involved

Family Violence

Family Violence: The Hidden Epidemic

• Parents who abuse their own spouses and children were often victims of abuse themselves as children, reflecting a cycle of violence.

Factors Increasing Likelihood of Abuse

• Low SES
• Growing up in a violent home
• Families with more children have more violence
• Single parent families with lots of stress

Marital Abuse

Stages of Marital Abuse (Walker)

• Tension-building stage: a batterer becomes upset and shows dissatisfaction initially through verbal abuse.
• Acute battering incident: the physical abuse actually occurs.
• Loving contrition stage: the partner feels remorse and apologizes for their actions.

Cycle of Violence Hypothesis

Abuse and neglect of children leads them to be predisposed to abusiveness as adults.

• About one-third of people who were abused or neglected as children abuse their own children.
• Two-thirds of abusers were not abused as children.

Spousal Abuse and Society

• Cultural correlates
• Status; low status = easy targets, high status = threat to partner
• Others cultures have traditions in which violence is regarded as acceptable
• Some experts suggest traditional power structure under which women and men function is root cause of abuse

Cycle of Violence Hypothesis

Dealing with Spousal Abuse

• Teach both wives and husbands that physical violence is NEVER acceptable
• Call the police
• Understand that the remorse shown by a spouse, no matter how heartfelt, may have no bearing on the possibility of future violence
• If you are the victim of abuse, seek a safe haven
• If you feel in danger from an abusive partner, seek a restraining order
• Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for immediate advice

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